Gladstone Rainwalkers Update

We have had a couple of successful walks, with the group doubling in size. However, we didn't make it out this week. The sidewalks and streets of Gladstones are covered with the ice, the remnants of our first snow storm of the season. We'll walk in the rain and we'll walk in the sunshine, but there a limits and ice is one of them.

Today we're in the middle of our second storm, with both snow and freezing rain in the forecast. The next storm, the big one, is scheduled for Sunday and into Monday. The outings of the Gladstone Rainwalkers may not occur until sometime in the new year.

Welcome to my Walking for Wellness Blog

It's strange how things like this get started. I have been talking to a friend about starting a walking group here in Gladstone, Oregon. It's a mostly forgotten place, located between Oak Grove to the North and Oregon City to the South. It's where the Clackamas River meets the Willamette River. I like to say it's somewhere in time between 1940 and 1963. The traffic by passes us on I-205 and McLaughlin Blvd. It's a great place to live, but please don't tell anyone.

I'm a health coach and have become interested in walking again as a way to maintain my recent 80 pound weight loss. I'm now sharing my experiences in regaining my health and decided it would be fun to have a group to walk with. I shared my idea with a friend while having my daily cup of coffee at the Happy Rock Coffee Company in downtown Gladstone.

Talk finally lead to action and on a wet Tuesday morning the Gladstone Rainwalkers had their inaugural walk in the rain. We returned to the coffee shop wet but excited about continuing to walk, rain for shine, and wanting to add more people to the group.

This blog is just the beginning of my efforts to promote walking as a tool for achieving optimal health.

According to Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, author of the just released Habits of Health, the Levine Lab at the Mayo Clinic reports that:

“leisure-time sedentariness has resulted from the availability and volitional use of pervasive mechanization. When the energetic cost of non-work mechanization is estimated experimentally it approximentes to 100 kca-200 kcal/day: a caloric deficit that potentially account for the entire obesity epidemic.”

Dr. A’s translation;

“Put down the remote, shovel your walk, open your cans with a manual opener, use the stairs, and take your dog for a walk, and you’ll maintain your healthy weight. Take a friend and your dog for a walk and you’ll help cure the epidemic!”

The Gladstone Rainwalkers and the other walking groups that I hope to inspire will do our part to reverse the epidemic of obesity one person, one walker at a time.

Happy Walking